Anime Reviews:

Princess Minerva

(1995)

I mentioned the sword 'n' sorcery genre in my review of Dragon Half. Well, a large chunk of this one seems to be the sort of thing which Dragon Half parodies: monsters, magic and F-size swords. This is odd, as it starts off looking in similar vein, not taking itself seriously in the slightest, the titular princess, to alleviate the boredom, switches to her secret identity as masked superheroine "Cutey Kamen" (even the name parodies two famous characters by Go Nagai). However, halfway in, it switches tack and starts falling into the same clichés it was previously mocking: evil wizards, elemental magic, etc. Pity, the po-faced chivalry on offer is far less interesting. 4/10

Jim McLennan